Jaipur: A hostel owner’s routine act of sharing what appeared to be a helpful “guess paper” with students has played a pivotal role in exposing the NEET paper leak scandal, leading to the exam’s cancellation and a multi-state investigation now under the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI).
On the night of May 2, an MBBS student from Sikar in Rajasthan, currently studying in Kerala, forwarded a PDF “guess paper” to his father, who operates a hostel for coaching students in Sikar. With the NEET exam scheduled for May 3 just hours away, the son mentioned it might prove useful for any hostel residents preparing for the test. Unaware at the time, the father and son had come across a leaked version of the actual question paper.
The next morning, the hostel owner attempted to pass the paper to four girls staying at the hostel who were appearing for the exam, but they had already departed for the centre. Curious, he shared it with a local chemistry teacher. Upon comparison after the exam, the teacher discovered that 45 out of 108 questions in the chemistry section matched exactly. Consulting a biology colleague, they found an additional 90 matches out of 204 questions, bringing the total to a striking 135 identical questions.
Alarmed by the near-perfect overlap, the hostel owner and the chemistry teacher approached the Sikar police to lodge a complaint. To their surprise, the police declined to register a case or pursue the matter. Officials reportedly suggested that complaining after the exam raised doubts about their motives, possibly an attempt to get the test cancelled. Sources in the Special Operations Group (SOG) told that police believed any genuine leak concern should have been reported beforehand.
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Undeterred, the duo emailed the National Testing Agency (NTA) directly. Their complaint gained traction four days after the exam. The NTA subsequently contacted the Intelligence Bureau and, on May 8, directed the Rajasthan SOG to investigate. Phone and WhatsApp records of the hostel owner have corroborated the timeline of events, according to SOG sources.
The Sikar probe has since unravelled a broader network. Leads pointed to two brothers in Jamwaramgarh near Jaipur who sold the paper to a Sikar contact. Further questioning traced it to a first-year Ayurvedic medicine student in Haryana, who allegedly distributed the leaked paper for substantial sums to aspirants in states including Bihar, Jammu and Kashmir, Andhra Pradesh, and Telangana. The trail then extended to Nashik in Maharashtra, where a student named Shubham Khairnar was reportedly found with a physical copy.
On Tuesday, the NTA cancelled the NEET UG 2026 examination. A fresh test will be held on revised dates, with no need for candidates to re-register or pay extra fees; all prior applications will remain valid. For security reasons, the SOG has withheld the identities of the hostel owner, his son, and the chemistry teacher whose vigilance helped uncover the leak. Investigations continue into the extent of the paper’s circulation in Sikar, now being handled by the CBI.